The custom of a city or state donating presentation silver to the namesake ship began in earnest with the citizens of Maine giving silver to the USS MAINE in 1891. With the build up of the Navy in the 1890s and early 1900s, the amount of funding for presentation silver and the elaborate designs and creation became a sense of pride of the donating city or state.

The effort to raise funds for the silver set for the first USS INDIANA (BB-1), the first battleship of the new United States Navy was initiated with an editorial by Charles R. Williams of the Indianapolis News in June 28, 1894.

Many prominent Hoosiers donated money including President Benjamin Harrison  with $100 and Governor Claude Matthews, Otto N. Frenzel, John P. Frenzel, John H. Holliday and citizens from every city, school children, businesses and organizations.

The remaining balance, $463.37 of a penny fund raised by Indiana school children to aid the State in making a school exhibit for the Worlds Columbian Exposition was given to the silver set fund making it one of the largest contributions. Since all the school children of the State had a part in the silver set, the most beautiful piece is inscribed as their gift. The large flower or fruit dish has the following inscription under the medallion: From the School Children of Indiana.

The goal of $8,000 was raised in 16 months for the silver and a collection of 83 books from Indiana authors and other books related to Indiana for the ship library. 

Tiffany & Co. design was selected among six companies. It took 24 men seven months to complete the silver.

John T. Curran, Manager of Tiffany & Co.s silver department in Newark, New Jersey, designed the service. Currans most famous creation was the Magnolia Vase, a large, jewel-encrusted, silver vase with enamel and gold insets, currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The silver set contains 200 lbs. of sterling silver. Appraised value today is $1.5 million. The two candelabras that cost $1,500 are now valued at $450,000.  

The silver set consists of a full dinner service and a tea set. Altogether there are 39 pieces. The design is distinctively representative of the State. The IndianaState seal appears on all the pieces with the Soldiers and Sailors Monument within a medallion. Featured are nautilus shells and seaweed, trees, plants and other flora of Indiana including black walnut, oak, maple and sycamore and beech trees, wild roses, acorns, oak and sycamore leaves suggesting the rolling swell of the sea. Each piece was inscribed with serial number for cataloging at the Tiffany & Co archive. 

When completed, the silver set was on display in the window of Tiffanys Union Square store then on displayed at the store of Albert Gall in Indianapolis.

On September 21, 1896, the silver set was presented to the USS INDIANA during an elaborate ceremony filled will many speeches while the ship rested in New York Bay. The Indiana contingent included Indiana Governor Claude Matthews and family, Mayor Thomas Taggart and family including Miss Lucy Taggart who commissioned the USS INDIANAPOLIS and presented the same silver set to the ship in December 3, 1932. Others included John H. Holliday, Bishop F. S. Chatard, Clem Studebaker and President Benjamin Harrison and Mrs. Harrison to name a few.

The silver was displayed in the Captains cabin. On July 4, 1898 during the second day of engagements off Santiago, Cuba during the Spanish-American War, a mortar shot hit the quarterdeck of the INDIANA and exploded inside. A fragment of the shell passed through the forward bulkhead of the cabin, then the entire length of the cabin and into the silver cabinet, and later was discovered embedded in the side of the 20 lb. punch bowl.

The dent was kept intact and the inside of the bowl was engraved with a description of the event. Tiffany & Co. made a silver, four-legged frame to hold the mortar shell fragment for display above the bowl. Considered a war relic, the punch bowl and its four-inch wide dent was regarded with the greatest pride by the officers and crew (New York Times Illustrated Magazine, September 25, 1898). The bowl and shell fragment have been on display at the USS Indianapolis Museum Gallery that opened July 2007.

When the USS INDIANA was decommissioned in 1919, the silver set was returned on loan to the Governors Mansion.

It was presented to USS INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35) December 3, 1932 by a Hoosier delegation including Miss Lucy Taggart, Indianapolis Mayor, Reginald Sullivan, Mary Sullivan and Donald Sullivan, sister and brother of the Mayor, Evelyn Chambers Ann Ayres, granddaughters of Thomas Taggart.

During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the INDIANAPOLIS three times including his historic month long trip touring South America in 1936 to attend the Good Neighbor Peace Conference. We do know President Roosevelt was served from the silver on several occasions. It is a goal of the Museum to record all occasions that the silver set was used during the last 111 years.

The silver was on board the USS INDIANAPOLIS for nine years.  The USS INDIANAPOLIS left its port in Pearl Harbor two days before the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. The silver service was taken off the USS INDIANAPOLIS and placed in storage after the cruiser returned to Pearl Harbor on December 13 after joining Task Force 12 and searching for the Japanese carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor.

On July 16, 1945, the USS INDIANAPOLIS left Mare Island Naval Station, San Francisco on a top secret mission to deliver components of the first atomic bomb Little Boy to TinianIsland in the Pacific. After delivering the components and leaving TinianIsland to join the fleet exercises near Japan, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese Submarine I-58 just after midnight on July 30, 1945. Of the 1,197 men on board, about 300 men died in the explosions and 880 made it into water. Due to communication and ship arrival notification errors, the INDIANAPOLIS was not listed as missing until a Navy aircraft on a routine mission happen to spot survivors in the ocean almost five days after sinking. Of the 880 men that went into the sea, only 317 survived the five days. Many either died of injuries, dehydration or from shark attacks. The lost of the USS INDIANAPOLIS is worst naval disaster in the history of the U.S. Navy. The USS INDIANAPOLIS was the last United States Navy ship sunk during World War II. There are 78 INDIANAPOLIS survivors living today.

When World War II ended, it became a Navy custom place silver on ships for pride and official Navy ceremonies.  The following is the 111 year travel history of the silver set.   

1896 1919 USS INDIANA (BB-1)

1920 1932 Loaned to Governors Mansion

1932 1941 USS INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35)

1941 1947 Stored ashore during World War II

1947 1949 USS TARAWA (CV 40) Carrier

1951 1972 USS WARP (CVS 18) Carrier

1973 2007 USS NIMITZ (CVN 68) Carrier

2008    USS IndianapolisMuseum

Throughout the Navy, there are more than 8,500 pieces of silver on current inventory, with an estimated value of $17.8 million. Of those pieces, nearly 2,000 are on loan at 54 locations and 3,777 on board Navy ships and submarines.

Today, many complete presentation silver sets or pieces presented to Navy ships and submarines can be found in museums and governor mansions of the home state.

After 76 years, the silver set officially returns home to Indiana today, February 13, 2008.

Below is a photo of the tea set (with the Governor & First Lady of Indiana and the USS Indianapolis Museum Board of Directors)